Thirteen Pieces of Darkness
by Forza del'Oscurit
Summary: Cray continuity. This is the story of the Shadow Paladins. Prequel to The World was Not Born into Darkness, official lore is used as primary source.
1. 1: Origin Mage, Ildona

**1**ORIGIN MAGE, ILDONA

The day that the dragon comes to him lives forever in Dana's mind. The terraced hills of the Sanctuary were tense that day, rice paddies stirring with the restless sway of their crop below. They cast ripples across miles of ankle-deep water. On this day, the dragon's heavy breathing keeps pace to the whistling mountain air. He slithers up alongside Dana and bows his head low to the barrel of red tea set beside the elf's table. This high up, no one in the whole Sanctuary could hear them, not if they shouted and bellowed for an entire week. Here, so close to the highplace of the gods, only Amaterasu may catch an echo of their conversation.

Dana sets his cup down, breathing deep in the dry mountain air as the dragon slakes himself, waves of amber tea frothing along his tapered jaw. For ages, Dana has taught apprentice after apprentice, translating from the sacred text of dragons to pass down magic to the children of the Sanctuary. There is no one in the world left alive who still speaks his native tongue, save these gods. Dana is tired of teaching.

The dragon rises up from his drained barrel to gaze out at the hills' incline. Thirty years from now, no one recalls his original name, save Dana himself. There is an understanding between them both; the first mage, and the first dragon. He is no longer certain who fell first, but here they both stand, steeped in despair and soon to be completely eclipsed. Historians will debate until the end of time _when_ the civil war began, but for Dana, it all starts from here, thirty years ago. There is a plan, a dragon and a wizard, and that is all it will ever take.

"Are you ready, old friend?" The dragon rumbles.

Dana is so very tired of teaching.


	2. 2: Black Sage, Charon

**2 **BLACK SAGE, CHARON

Charon knows that the Master is dead because he leaves a lifetime of books behind in wake of his departure. And Charon cannot wholly come to grips with the idea of the first mage as having passed on; none of the students can, and Dana had _many _students. There is no warning or explanation. One late night or early morning he was tuning down the lamps of the study and bidding the Master a good evening after yet another day's work of copying holy manuscripts, Dana waved him off wordlessly and when Charon reentered the study at the next sunrise, he found an empty chair.

With weeks left before him to sort through the Master's belongings alongside the slew of other students—some of them having long since become full Masters in their own right, but students of Dana regardless—Charon has time to think the years through. Time is all they are left with now. They all claim various things from his library, some of the returning sages tearfully taking back books that they had lent Dana centuries ago, others fondly reclaiming grimoires that they themselves had wrote. For Marron it was a little wooden figurine, but for Charon's part he claims pictures. Portraits. Not of the young elf, the past Dana with full black skin that he had never known, but of the late master-sage that had strolled about the library giving long lectures on foot, the weathered, bronze Dana that grew paler with each passing year. That is the Master that he was taught by.

Charon sorts out the spellbooks patiently, one page at a time, sifting for various bookmarks, and handwritten notes that he orders the younger apprentices transcribe into separate archives. The Master taught him patience before all else, in study and magic and food. "And women," he can remember the mage fondly muttering where his visiting colleagues could not hear one evening, "women do not like hasty young wizards."

When the others are gone and Charon is still working late into the evening, his eyes half-lidded, ready to collapse right into the text of Dana's ninety-ninth journal, he finds a cloth tucked away between the towering ink-and-vellum slabs. A black banner, patterned with the writhing tail of a dragon. The symbol is familiar; the serpent that chases its own tail, pursuer of the truth, eternity and rebirth. A cyclic creature that can never truly vanish from the world of the living.

Marron does not think anything of it, but in the Master's portraits Charon sees the dragon come to life again and again, thrown over his shoulder or strung along the background. He does not speak to his superiors of the banner. It itches at the back of his mind, a nagging sense that perhaps Dana did not _need _books where he was going. Charon reviews the portrait frames each night before bed, begins casting spells to blacken his skin, starts to file his ears at the edges.

The Master is beginning something. Charon knows this in a way that he cannot know magic or the fact of the Master's death. There is an intimate sense of _sharing _between him and the portraits, as if the Master had reached out and tucked a secret away in his heart.

Before long his superiors have ordered him away from the library. It is time that he began the work that the Master trained him for. Marron is posted with him, putting on a brave face in spite of Dana's death, and together their first assignment will be to the Blaster Blade corps.

Charon rubs his ears in the mirror, whispering curatives to cauterize the redness at their edges. No matter how many times he dyes his skin, it washes white in the evening. Even so, the idea is still burning within him, hot like the pain in his ears. "Someday," Charon mutters, tying up string along the brim of one portrait's leather case.

He could be Dana.


End file.
